Wednesday, May 14, 2014

There is something psychologically damaging about walking for miles and miles and miles and still being able to see the place you left from. It makes you think you are getting nowhere.

There is something psychologically damaging in names. Call something the Devil's Staircase and it becomes an insurmountable obstacle filled with fear and dread. Where, really, one foot in front of the other eventually gets you there, devil or not.

Top: Look at how small the house in the right hand corner is

Bottom: A beautifully sculpted valley

There is something psychologically damaging about having no name. When you get up and over a thing called the Devil's Staircase and then have to make a rocky, winding descent on the other side with no justifiable reason or name or recognition, it does something silly to your brain. It should be the Devil's Ramp, or the Devil's Torture, or the Devil's Downhill.

There is something psychologically damaging about going downhill. In theory, it should be a pleasant, enjoyable thing. I find myself holding on to the front of my boots with my toenails, hunching my shoulders like Uriah Heep, and clenching my poles like they are the only thing between me and the precipice of death. A sweet lady passed me on the way up the Staicase, and then came back the other way: she said 'When I was on the top, I thought "I must tell the lady in the bright yellow jacket that the other side is all downhill."' She thought that was a good thing.

Left: Up one side. Devil's Staircase

Right: And down the other. No name.

There is something psychologically damaging about being able to see your destination from a great height and then walking a circuitous route, seemingly in every other direction but straight-toward, to get there. I eventually gave this portion of the road a name—The Road of Disappointments. Around every corner, before you reached it, was hope; around every corner, when you reached it, was more road. V—— had a name for it too, but it doesn't do to say that particular word outside of a forest where the saying of it doesn't exist if no-one is there to hear it.

There is nothing that cures all psychological damage incurred in a day like a warm room, a warm shower, a pub next door, a large fluffy doona and a hot chocolate.

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Welcome:

One of the one-hundred-and-one things I'd like to do before the end of this life and the beginning of the next is walk from Land's End to John O'Groats. This blog follows my attempt to tick that off the list. It will take me a while: the typical walking route is approximately 1200 miles or 1900 kilometers. Every year I spend a few weeks walking as far as I can. Every year there is a B-based theme.

Year One (2009): Land's End to Bath. 21 Days. 404.2 kms. Bifurcating Britain in a Ballgown with a Beaver.

Year Two (2010): Bath to Formby. 23 Days. 401.5 kms. A Beatnik Bifurcating Britain with a Beaver.

Year Three (2012): Liverpool (backtracked from Formby) toInversnaid. 42 Days. 666.2 kms. A Boho, an inverted Hobo, and a Beaver, Basically Bifurcating Britain.

About Me

Me? I like Pina Colada (but mainly if its made from white rum and strawberries) and getting caught in the rain (yeah, I just like that). I like lists, Scrabble and puppies, and semi-colons are my favourite punctuation (em dashes are a close second). You? I guess you just need to like hearing me waffle on!